Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition politician and one of President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, has described the psychological torture he endured during 11 months in solitary confinement, saying he thought he would die in a Siberian cell.

The British-Russian national was freed at the same time as Americans Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva, who were reunited with their families in emotional scenes at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland earlier this month.

“Just a little over two weeks ago, I was still sitting in my solitary confinement cell in a harsh regime prison colony in Siberia. And I was certain that I was going to end my life in the prison,” Kara-Murza said. “And here I am now sitting with you in a studio in New York next to my wife … It feels as if I’m watching some sort of film, it’s a really good film, but it still feels surreal.”

Since the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison in February, Kara-Murza has been the most prominent opposition figure persecuted by the Kremlin.

He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for treason for speaking out against Putin’s war in Ukraine and had spent two and a half years imprisoned in Russia. During that time, Kara-Murza was held in solitary confinement for 11 months and locked up in 13 different penitentiaries, including some of the most notorious prison colonies in the country.

He was allowed to speak on the phone with his wife only once and his three children just twice, he said.

Speaking to Erin Burnett alongside her husband, Evgenia Kara-Murza – who tirelessly lobbied for his release – said she is relieved that she no longer has “this nagging fear in the back of my mind at all times of the day that Vladimir can be killed at any moment.”

But she vowed to keep fighting for the other prisoners still locked up in “Vladimir Putin’s regime.”

“Thousands of people have been affected in the same way our family has been affected … This is a victory, but this is only the beginning,” she said.

“We understand that there are over a thousand political prisoners in Russia, that there are thousands of Ukrainians, civilian hostages and war prisoners, not to mention kidnapped Ukrainian kids. And we understand there are over a thousand political prisoners in neighboring Belarus. So, the fight will have to continue.”

‘Absolutely certain’ he was being led to execution

The night he was taken from the prison in Omsk, 2,700 kilometers (1,600 miles) away from Moscow, ahead of the prisoner swap, Kara-Murza said prison guards had burst into his cell at 3 a.m. telling him to “get up, get dressed and to get ready.”

“I was absolutely certain in that moment that I was going to be let out and get executed,” he said.

But Kara-Murza was taken to a passenger airport in Omsk and loaded onto a plane headed for Moscow.

After spending nearly a year locked in a tiny cell in solitary confinement with no one to talk to, Kara-Murza said he was suddenly thrust into “the middle of a busy passenger airport with normal people, families, kids, walking around.”

He was transferred to Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison and held incommunicado with no idea he would soon be released.

Guards told him to dress in the only civilian clothes he had – a night shirt and rubber flip-flops he used in the shower – before taking him to a bus in the prison courtyard.

“It was a really a picture out of Hollywood movie. There was a row of men in black balaclavas covering their faces,” he said. “It was only then at the very last moment when I saw my friends and colleagues on that bus … that’s when I knew what was happening.”

Included in the release was a host of Russian activists, human rights defenders and opposition figures.

The sweeping deal involved 24 detainees in total and was the result of years of complicated behind-the-scenes negotiations involving the US, Russia, Belarus and Germany, ultimately leading Berlin to agree to Moscow’s key demand – releasing convicted Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov.

Kara-Muza said he stepped off the plane in Ankara, Turkey and was handed a phone with US President Joe Biden calling. Standing next to Biden in the Oval Office in Washington, DC and joining the call were his wife and kids.

Speaking to his family for the first time since his release, Kara-Muza said, “I don’t believe what’s happening. I still think I’m sleeping in my prison cell in Omsk instead of hearing your voice.”

‘Psychological torture’

On Monday, Kara-Murza said that while physical torture is rife in Russia’s prison system, high profile political prisoners are kept isolated in an “enforced solitude” that is “no better than physical torture.”

“Every day is like Groundhog Day. It’s meaningless, it’s endless and it’s exactly the same,” he said. “When you have absolutely nobody to like exchange a single word with, it really starts to get on your mind.”

Kara-Murza described the brutal conditions of being kept in a tiny cell all day with nothing to do and no one to talk to.

“You wake up at 5:00 a.m. in the morning with an official wake-up call. Your bunk gets attached to the wall so there’s no way you can lie or properly sit down all day. All you can do is just walk around the cell,” he said.

Inmates were allowed a pen and paper for only 90 minutes a day, and “the only time I got taken out of the cell is to go out for a so-called walk, which is basically just walking around in a circle in a small covered internal prison courtyard.”

While held in the “special regime” Penal Colony No. 7 in Omsk, Kara-Murza said conditions were “really harsh” but one “big plus” was the cats that would walk around the facility.

“When I was walking around in the courtyard the cats would come in and sit next to the metal bars and I was able to have a conversation with them. These were my only interlocutors,” he said.

Now enjoying his freedom and time with his family, Kara-Murza has promised to return to Russia.

“I know that Russia will change, and I will be back to my homeland,” he said, adding, “it will be much quicker” than anyone might think.

His wife Evgenia agreed: “The fight continues. We’re going to have to do everything we can to bring down this regime and this evil,” she said.

Sudan is at a “breaking point,” a United Nations agency said Monday, as a growing number of people need food, water, shelter and medical care in a country devastated by intensifying war.

Over eight million people have been displaced since fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) last year, plunging the country into what the UN has called “one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory.”

“Without an immediate, massive, and coordinated global response, we risk witnessing tens of thousands of preventable deaths in the coming months,” Othman Belbeisi, the Middle East and Africa director for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said in a statement. “We are at breaking point, a catastrophic, cataclysmic breaking point,” he added.

At least half of the displaced are children in a war tarred by “appalling levels of rights violations, ethnic targeting, massacres of civilian populations and gender-based violence,” the statement said.

Earlier this month, the UN-backed Famine Review Committee said at least one refugee camp in Sudan’s Darfur region is experiencing famine, which the agency has only declared twice in Sudan’s history. In May, the World Food Programme said people in that region had been forced to eat grass and peanut shells to survive.

“Over the next three months, an estimated 25.6 million people will face acute food insecurity as the conflict spreads and coping mechanisms are exhausted,” the IOM statement said. “Many other places” in Sudan are also at risk of famine, it added.

Armed forces are also blocking urgently needed aid deliveries to Sudan, and the IOM said it needs additional funding to reach those in need. Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said a key bridge used by aid workers to reach the Darfur region collapsed last week after severe flooding.

The warning comes as a new round of ceasefire talks led by the US and Saudi Arabia are expected to begin this week in Switzerland, the AP reported Monday. The RSF, which evolved from the Janjaweed militia that spearheaded the Darfur genocide in the early 2000s, has agreed to attend the talks, but Sudan’s military has not.

“This was the only safe route for humanitarian aid to reach Central & (South) Darfur,” the agency said Monday in a post on X. “This adds another major obstacle to our efforts in delivering life-saving aid to Sudan.”

A Sudanese government delegation met over the weekend with US officials in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah in a bid to convince the military to attend Wednesday, but no breakthrough was achieved, according to the AP.

“We’ve had extensive engagement with the SAF,” Tom Perriello, the US special envoy for Sudan, told reporters Monday, according to the news agency. “They have not yet given us an affirmation, which would be necessary today for moving forward.”

“We have not given up hope that SAF will attend the talks,” he added.

As tremors shook the ground in parts of western Japan last Thursday, local and national government bodies leapt into action.

Meteorologists gathered and issued a temporary tsunami advisory. A special committee warned that another “major earthquake” could hit in the coming week – the first time in its history the body had issued this type of nationwide advisory. High-speed trains slowed down as a precaution, causing travel delays, and the country’s prime minister canceled his overseas trips.

In the end, the government lifted most advisories and reported no major damage from the 7.1-magnitude quake. But much of the country remains on high alert, preparing for a potential emergency during what is normally peak travel season during summer holidays – reflecting Japan’s laser-focus on earthquake preparedness.

However, some experts have cast doubt on whether such an advisory is necessary, or even accurate – and whether it risks pulling resources away from communities deemed lower risk.

Japan is no stranger to severe earthquakes. It lies on the Ring of Fire, an area of intense seismic and volcanic activity on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

“Japan sits on the boundaries of four tectonic plates, which makes it one of the most earthquake-prone areas in the world,” said Shoichi Yoshioka, a professor at Japan’s Kobe University.

“About 10% of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or higher occur in or around Japan, so the risk is much higher than in places like Europe or the eastern United States, where earthquakes are rare,” Yoshioka said.

The worst quake in recent Japanese history was the 9.1 magnitude Tohoku earthquake in 2011 that triggered a major tsunami and nuclear disaster. About 20,000 people were killed.

Then there’s the looming threat of the Nankai Trough megathrust earthquake – the most powerful of its kind, with magnitudes that can exceed 9. Seismologists say this could come potentially within a few decades, though the science remains disputed.

Japan’s government has warned of the possible Nankai Trough quake for so many years that the possibility of it occurring has become common knowledge. But it’s also controversial – with some scientists arguing it’s ineffective to focus solely on the slim odds of a hypothetical earthquake in a specific part of Japan, especially when other parts of the country face similar threats but receive far less attention.

The ‘big one’

The Nankai Trough is a 700-kilometer long (435-mile) subduction zone, which refers to when tectonic plates slip beneath each other. Most of the world’s earthquakes and tsunamis are caused by the movements of tectonic plates – and the most powerful often occur in subduction zones.

In this case, the tectonic plate under the Philippine Sea is slowly slipping beneath the continental plate where Japan is located, moving several centimeters each year, according to a 2013 report by the government’s Earthquake Research Committee.

At the Nankai Trough, severe earthquakes have been recorded every 100 to 200 years, according to the committee. The last such quakes took place in 1944 and 1946, both measuring 8.1 in magnitude; they devastated Japan, with at least 2,500 total deaths and thousands more injured, as well as tens of thousands of homes destroyed.

By calculating the intervals between each major quake, the Japanese government has warned there is a 70% to 80% chance that Japan will be rocked by another Nankai Trough earthquake within 30 years, expected to be between magnitude 8 and 9.

But these forecasts, and the utility of even making long-term imprecise predictions, have faced strong pushback from some quarters.

Yoshioka, from Kobe University, said the 70%-80% figure was likely too high, and that the data drew from one specific theory, making it potentially more prone to errors. However, he had no doubt that “a major earthquake will occur in this area” in the future.

“I tell (my students), the Nankai Trough earthquake will definitely come, whether it’s your generation or your children’s generation,” he said.

Robert Geller, a seismologist and professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, was more skeptical, calling the Nankai Trough earthquake a “made-up construct” and a “purely hypothetical scenario.”

He also argued that earthquakes don’t occur in cycles, but can take place at any place and time – meaning there’s little point calculating when the next quake will come based on when previous ones have occurred.

It’s a point of contention in the scientific community; seismologists have long relied on the idea that stress accumulates slowly along a fault between two tectonic plates, then is suddenly released in earthquakes, a cycle known as the “stick-slip” process – though more recent studies have shown that’s not always the case.

Even if there is a potential threat on the horizon, the odds are extremely low, with both Yoshioka and Geller calling the public safety measures taken in the past week excessive or unnecessary.

It is true that after one earthquake, a second, larger one can follow – which is why authorities issued the unprecedented warning last Thursday, Yoshioka said. But even then, the probability of the Nankai Trough earthquake happening the next day is low – perhaps increasing from the typical risk of one in 1,000 to one in a few hundred. That’s still less than a 1% chance, he said.

The danger of overblowing these low odds is that, “You would be like the boy who cried wolf,” Geller said. “You’d be issuing these warnings of a slightly larger than normal probability over and over and over again, and the public would get tired of you in a big hurry.”

The public prepares

However, there are no signs of public fatigue yet, with people nationwide on high alert.

Yota Sugai, a 23-year-old college student, said seeing the warning on television “made me feel a sense of urgency and fear, like a wake-up call.” After Thursday’s quake, he secured emergency supplies like food and water, monitored online maps for hazardous areas, and considered visiting his relatives in coastal areas to help them plan evacuation routes.

⁠“The recent earthquake on New Year’s Day reminded me that you never know when the earthquake will hit. It made me realize the terrifying power of nature,” he said, referring to the 7.5 magnitude quake that hit the Noto Peninsula on January 1 this year – killing hundreds, including dozens who died after the quake from related causes.

Student Mashiro Ogawa, 21, took similar precautions, preparing an “emergency kit” at home and urging her parents to do the same. She’s going to avoid beaches for now and change the furniture in her home, such as moving shelves away from her bed and lowering their height, she said.

⁠“It didn’t feel like a close issue before, but now it feels very real,” she said.

Part of the reason people are taking this so seriously is because of how many earthquakes rock Japan, and how fresh they feel. The 2011 disaster left major scars on the national psyche, which are compounded by new major quakes every few years.

“Each time, we witness the tragic loss of lives, buildings being crushed, and tsunamis causing devastation, leaving a lasting impression of fear,” said Yoshioka, from Kobe University. “This fear is likely shared by many citizens. I think this contributes significantly to why Japan is so prepared.”

It’s why “the Japanese government also emphasizes preparation to avoid another major tragedy like the 2011 earthquake,” he added. Japan is largely recognized to be a world leader in earthquake preparedness and resiliency, from its infrastructure and building codes to its relief and rescue systems.

Megumi Sugimoto, an associate professor at Osaka University specializing in disaster prevention, said that preparedness starts in school – with even kindergartens holding evacuation and earthquake drills for toddlers.

“It’s not only (earthquakes and) tsunamis, but other disasters occur frequently, especially in the summer season,” she said, pointing to typhoons, severe rain and flooding. Public awareness and precautions, like stocking up on emergency supplies, can help protect people from “any type of disasters,” she said.

But there’s still work to be done. Sugimoto and Geller, from the University of Tokyo, both pointed to the Noto earthquake as exposing gaps in Japan’s response systems, with road collapses that stranded the worst-hit communities, and many displaced residents still without homes months afterward.

And, they said, the obstacles in Noto point to the risk of focusing too much attention on the Nankai Trough, when other parts of the country are just as threatened.

For instance, Sugimoto used to work in Fukuoka, on the southwest island of Kyushu. The area where she lived has experienced damaging quakes in the past, despite not being labeled as one of the high-risk areas near the Nankai Trough.

Because of that, “people didn’t prepare well,” she said. And whereas the Nankai Trough area received government funding for quake preparations, “the Fukuoka area where I was living is not supported by the central government.”

Geller added that while the emphasis on Nankai has made people in that region well-prepared, it’s “bad for rest of the country. Because people think, Nankai is very dangerous, but we’re OK here in Kumamoto, or in the Noto Peninsula,” he said.

“So, it has the effect of lulling everyone into a sense of false security, except in the supposedly imminent area.”

Israel and the United States are preparing for a potential Iranian attack on Israel as efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza intensify, with talks set to resume this week amid intense diplomacy to avert a wider regional war.

Mediators have urged Israel and Hamas to return to the negotiating table in a renewed push to strike a ceasefire deal after the talks risked being derailed by the recent assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders which Iran and its Lebanese proxy have vowed to avenge.

Negotiations are set to resume in the Egyptian capital Cairo or the Qatari capital Doha on Thursday. Last week, the United States, Egypt and Qatar – key mediators in talks between Israel and Hamas – said they will use the meeting to present a “final bridging proposal” and urged both sides to attend.

A major Iranian attack reprisal against Israel could risk derailing the ceasefire talks that US officials have said were at an advanced stage prior to the assassination of Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which Iran blamed on Israel. Israel hasn’t confirmed or denied responsibility.

In a joint statement Sunday evening, France, Germany and the United Kingdom endorsed the calls for the warring parties to strike a deal, saying “there can be no further delay” given the simmering threat of a regional conflagration.

Whether the talks will proceed however is uncertain. Israel said it will send a delegation to the Thursday talks, but Hamas hasn’t confirmed attendance, even if has signaled that it still wants a deal.

Following Haniyeh’s assassination, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Haniyeh’s death would “not pass in vain,” and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that “blood vengeance” for the killing is “certain.”

There have been some indications that Iran may abandon plans to attack Israel if a ceasefire deal is reached. But the country’s mission to the United Nations said on Saturday that Tehran’s retaliation to Israel’s suspected killing of Haniyeh is “totally unrelated to the Gaza ceasefire,” adding that it has a right to self-defense.

The US and Israel continued preparations for that scenario over the weekend. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a guided missile submarine, the USS Georgia, to the Middle East and accelerated the arrival of a carrier strike group to the region, the Pentagon said Sunday evening. The US also released $3.5 billion to Israel to spend on US weapons and military equipment, months after it was appropriated by Congress. And on Monday, the Israeli military suspended vacation flights for permanent personnel in anticipation of an attack.

Iran’s UN mission said it hopes that its attack on Israel “will be timed and conducted in a manner not to the detriment of the potential ceasefire.”

“Direct and intermediary official channels to exchange messages have always existed between Iran and the United States, the details of which both parties prefer to remain untold,” it added.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah – the Iran-backed militant group in southern Lebanon – fired a barrage of about 30 rockets toward northern Israel Sunday night. Although rocket fire toward Israel from Lebanon has become a near-daily occurrence since the outbreak of war in Gaza, Israeli officials fear a larger-scale response from Hezbollah after the assassination of the group’s top military commander Fu’ad Shukr in a Beirut suburb last month

But as the world watched Iranian airspace and the Israel-Lebanon border, the worst of the weekend’s fighting was again confined to the Gaza Strip, as an Israeli strike on a mosque and school in Gaza City killed at least 93 Palestinians on Saturday, according to local officials.

With the number of Palestinians killed during 10 months of war edging closer to 40,000, Israel’s strike sparked global condemnation. Qatar and Egypt condemned the strike, calling it a violation of international law, and the US National Security Council said the White House was “deeply concerned” about reports of civilian casualties.” In the aftermath, the three mediators renewed their calls for the warring parties to agree to a ceasefire deal.

Although the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had targeted a Hamas command post and killed several fighters, the strike was a reminder that, despite its earlier claims to have dismantled Hamas in the north of the Strip, the militant group has reassembled in areas previously deemed clear.

Renewed talks

After Haniyeh’s assassination, Hamas named Yahya Sinwar – its leader in Gaza and one of the masterminds of the October 7 attack on Israel – as the new head of its political bureau, suggesting that Hamas’ most extreme faction had taken over, further dimming hopes of a ceasefire deal.

But, following the call from mediators last week to return to talks, Hamas requested a plan to implement the existing offer proposed by US President Joe Biden in July, rather than pursuing additional negotiations.

“Out of concern and responsibility towards our people and their interests, the movement demands the mediators to present a plan to implement what they presented to the movement and agreed upon on July 2, 2024, based on Biden’s vision and the UN Security Council resolution, and to compel the occupation (Israel) to do so, instead of going for further negotiation rounds or new proposals,” Hamas said in a statement Sunday.

But, despite growing pressure at home to help bring the hostages home, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stymied attempts to reach an agreement.

“Nobody knows what Bibi wants,” one Israeli source said, calling Netanyahu by his nickname.

A security guard said he tried to save an 11-year-old girl and a 34-year-old woman as they were attacked by a man wielding a knife in London’s Leicester Square, one of the busiest tourist destinations in the English capital.

London’s Westminster Police said a man, believed to be the only suspect, had been arrested after the attack on Monday morning.

The guard, who gave his name as Abdullah, 29, told PA Media he was working at a nearby tea shop in the square when he “heard a scream” and saw the women being attacked by a man who appeared to be in his thirties.

“I jumped on him, held the hand in which he was (carrying) a knife, and just put him down on the floor and just held him and took the knife away from him,” Abdullah said.

Two other people came to help him hold the attacker down for “maybe three to four minutes,” he said, before police arrived and took him into custody.

Abdullah said he and the two others had given first aid to the girl before police took over.

“I just saw a kid getting stabbed and I just tried to save her. It’s my duty to just save them,” he said.

UK police remain on high alert after days of far-right riots earlier this month, spurred by disinformation around a deadly stabbing attack in the north of England.

The London Ambulance Service said it was called to the scene at around 11.36 a.m. Monday morning (6.36 a.m. ET), and that paramedics had taken the victims to a major trauma center.

In a later update, Westminster Police said that the 11-year-old girl will require hospital treatment but her injuries are not life-threatening, and that the second victim suffered more minor injuries.

“At this stage, there is no suggestion that the incident is terror-related,” it said.

In a major report last month, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) warned that violence against women and girls in England and Wales had reached “epidemic levels.”

A fast-spreading wildfire continued to rage close to the Greek capital of Athens on Monday, prompting authorities to ask residents to evacuate their homes.

More than 500 firefighters, 152 vehicles, 29 water-bombing aircraft and a large number of volunteers are working to extinguish the blaze, which broke out Sunday near the town of Varnavas, north of Athens, fire authorities said.

Despite overnight efforts to contain the wildfire, officials warned Monday that it had “developed rapidly” and was heading towards Penteli, around 16 kilometers (about 10 miles) northeast of Athens.

Fires officials have not said how big the fire is, but Greek public broadcaster ERT estimates it exceeds 30 kilometers (about 19 miles).

Although wildfires are common in Greek summers, climate scientists say that unusually hot and dry weather linked to global warming make the blazes fiercer and more common. Greek authorities have battled dozens of blazes already this summer after enduring its hottest June and July on record.

The country’s climate crisis and civil protection minister, Vassilis Kikilias, warned over the weekend that “extremely high and dangerous weather conditions” would continue through Thursday.

Health minister Adonis Georgiadis said two dozen children were evacuated from a children’s hospital in Penteli and that health centers had been put on high alert. Two hospitals have been evacuated, fire officials said.

“Winds overnight remained strong creating dangerous conditions. Unfortunately, their intensity is expected to increase in the next few hours and the citizens of the areas where the fire is developing should in any case follow the instructions of the authorities,” fire service spokesman Vasilios Vathrakoyiannis said.

Officials also said that homes have been damaged, without specifying how many.

The wildfire has raised fears that Greece could be heading for a repeat of last summer, when blazes scorched through several regions and islands, including its heavily-forested national park, known as the “lungs of Athens.”

Russian authorities were on Monday evacuating civilians from more areas along the Ukrainian border, a week into Kyiv’s surprise cross-border incursion into Russian territory.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region in southern Russia, said people living in the Krasnoyaruzhsky district were being relocated to safer places. This comes after the evacuations over the weekend of thousands of people living in the neighboring Kursk region.

“We’re having a disturbing morning – enemy activities on the border of Krasnoyaruzhsky district. I am sure that our military will do everything to cope with this threat. But to protect the life and health of our people, we are beginning to relocate people who live in the Krasnoyaruzhsky district to safer places,” he said in a statement posted on his official Telegram channel.

The incursion, which is now affecting two Russian regions, is seen as something of a game-changer in the conflict. The Ukrainian military has in the past regularly attacked targets inside the Belgorod region with drones and missiles, but until last week Kyiv had not launched any official ground incursions across the border in the two and half years since the start of the full-scale war.

The extent of the operation remains unclear.

An influential Russian military blog Rybar said on Monday that “apparently the [Armed Forces of Ukraine] is not shying away from plans to stretch our defensive formations, create the maximum number of points of tension, and attempt to break through in the east to cut Belgorod off from the north.”

Several Russian military bloggers reported an attempt by Ukrainian armed forces to attack a border crossing in the Belgorod region Monday morning, in the district that Russian authorities say is being evacuated.

The operation, which started last Tuesday, has been shrouded in mystery. Ukrainian officials have for days remained silent, refusing to comment on reports of Ukrainian troops operating inside Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky finally confirmed Kyiv’s troops crossed into Russia on Saturday, saying in his nightly address to the nation that “Ukraine is proving that it really knows how to restore justice and guarantees exactly the kind of pressure that is needed – pressure on the aggressor.”

Diversionary tactic?

The reason for the attack is also unclear. Ukraine has been under increased pressure along the 600-mile frontline as Moscow continues its slow, grinding offensive, inching towards several strategically important towns and roads in eastern Ukraine.

The cross-border attack could be an attempt to divert Russian resources elsewhere. Given the spate of more negative developments from the frontline, the news of a successful incursion help Kyiv boost the morale of its troops and civilian population.

Moscow has been scrambling to contain the attack. Russian authorities imposed a sweeping counter-terror operation in the three border regions, but stopped short of declaring the incursion an act of war.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US-based conflict monitoring group, said this was likely an attempt by the Kremlin to deliberately downplay the assault to prevent domestic panic or backlash over the fact that Russia was unable to defend its own borders.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin has refrained from officially declaring a state of war, has repeatedly demonstrated his unwillingness to transfer Russian society fully to a war-time footing, and has forgone declaring general mobilization as part of wider efforts to prevent domestic discontent that could threaten the stability of (his) regime,” the ISW said in its update.

The counterterrorist regime officially gives Russian authorities wider powers, including the ability to monitor telephone conversations and restrict communications and limiting the movement of people.

Using his sleeve to wipe tear gas from his burning eyes, 25-year-old Mugdho weaves through the crowd, handing out bottles of water to the protesters whose demands for reform would soon topple Bangladesh’s leader.

Fifteen minutes later, the university student would become a martyr of the protest movement, when a bullet pierced his forehead as he paused to rest during the searing afternoon heat in the capital Dhaka.

The video of Mugdho handing out water before his death on July 18 punctured the social news feeds of millions across Bangladesh, galvanizing more people to take to the streets calling for justice for the lives lost.

What began as peaceful protests against a quota system for government jobs spiraled into a nationwide movement to push longtime Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina out of office, resulting in a deadly crackdown and clashes which killed at least 300 people, according to analysis by local media and agencies.

“(The killings) kept happening, and everyone was silent,” said Farah Porshia, a 23-year-old protester who works at a tech company in Dhaka. “We needed to stand up for ourselves, and for democracy.”

Hasina fled to India by helicopter last week as tens of thousands of protesters marched on her home. By Thursday, the Bangladeshi economist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus had returned to Dhaka to form a temporary government, ahead of elections which the constitution states should be held within 90 days.

“I’m surprised by the amount of power we hold,” Porshia said. “Because for years, all of us have been feeling so powerless.”

Families seek justice

As the chaos of the last month is replaced by an uneasy calm, many families are now seeking accountability for the deaths of their loved ones.

Identical twins Mugdho and Snigdho were inseparable since birth – eating, sleeping and studying together, sharing clothes as well as secrets.

“He was not only my brother, he was my best friend, he is one of the parts of my body,” Snigdho said. “We used to do everything together.”

Math graduate Mugdho was studying for an MBA, and Snigdho had graduated with a law degree. The twins were planning to move to Italy this fall – to further their studies and explore Europe on motorbikes. To save money for their travels, they were doing social media marketing for the online freelancer hub Fiver.

Now, Snigdho and the twins’ older brother Dipto – Mir Mahmudur Rahman – are facing a future without Mugdho.

They kept hold of the university ID card Mugdho wore on a lanyard around his neck when he died – his spattered blood left to dry as a symbol of that dark day.

Now, they are trying to find solace from the impact Mugdho made on the protest movement.

“Because of him, people got the strength to do the protest,” Snigdho said. “He always used to say that ‘I will make my parents proud someday.’ That moment has come.”

Mugdho died two days after another pivotal moment in the protests – the death of 25-year-old Abu Sayed on July 16, captured on video which was widely circulated.

Amnesty International analyzed the videos and accused police officers of deliberately firing at Sayed with 12-gauge shotguns in a “seemingly intentional, unprovoked attack,” and condemned the authorities for using “unlawful force.”

The shocking deaths of Sayed and Mugdho catapulted the unrest from being a largely student-led protest into the mainstream.

“Everybody was on the streets, people of every race, every religion, every ethnicity, of all ages, professionals, students, infants were on the roads,” Porshia said.

Among the hundreds of people who have reportedly died during the clashes over the past few weeks, UNICEF says at least 32 were children.

In a tiny shack made of corrugated metal and mud in the heart of Dhaka, the parents of 13-year-old victim Mubarak are still trying to process what happened to their son.

His mother Fareeda Begum rocks back and forth, weeping as she watches Mubarak’s TikTok videos on her phone – now all that she has left of him.

The youngest of four and the only one who still lived at home, Mubarak often helped his parents with their cows so they could sell milk to survive.

“He was a smiling, happy boy. If you gave him work, he would never say no, he would do it with a smile,” his father Mohammad Ramzan Ali said, adding that he could also be “a little mischievous.”

Mubarak was outside playing with his friends on July 19 when the curious teenager wandered a short distance from their home in central Dhaka to see the protests.

The parents only found out that he’d been shot when they got a call from the hospital.

Holding his wife Fareeda in his arms as her tears rolled down her face, Ali said, “My son has been martyred for this movement.”

“I did not understand this quota protest before, we are uneducated,” he said. “But later what I understood is that this protest isn’t just for students, it’s for all of Bangladesh.”

China is celebrating its best-ever performance at an overseas Olympics after winning the same number of golds as the United States at the Paris 2024 Games.

Both countries finished with 40 golds, marking the first ever tie for total golds at the Summer Games – but the US claimed top spot overall with 126 medals to China’s 91.

The race was dramatically close as the two sporting superpowers went head-to-head in yet another aspect of their geopolitical rivalry in a Games that was at times overshadowed by a doping controversy.

China has become one of the world’s most competitive sporting nations in recent decades, seeing its Olympic performance as a symbol of national strength. In 2008, it topped the gold medal table at the Beijing Games, surpassing the US for the first time.

In Paris, the Chinese team appeared on course to top the medal table as it built up a sizable early lead over Team USA, thanks to its domination in shooting and diving. But as track and field events got underway, the US quickly caught up – then eventually overtook its rival.

China is only the third country after the US and the former Soviet Union to top the gold medal count at a Summer Olympics away from home soil – and Chinese state media hailed the “record-breaking” haul from Paris.

“Chinese analysts said this proves that the success of Chinese modernization can bring not only economic growth, but also can benefit the development of public health, as well as the environment for sports industries, to effectively energize ‘sports for all,’” the state-run Global Times said.

Chinese social media also celebrated the team’s performance with a burst of national pride, with many users criticizing what they said was as an unfair attempt by US officials to smear China with persistent doping allegations against its swim team.

On microblogging site Weibo, the hashtag “China tied for first place on the gold medal leaderboard” became the top trending topic, racking up more than 500 million views.

“We won every gold medal square and fair!” said a top comment with over 28,000 likes.

Others argued China should have surpassed the US with a total of 44 golds by adding the medals from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Taiwan competes at the Olympics as Chinese Taipei to avoid objections from China, whose ruling Communist Party claims the democratically governed island as its own territory despite having never controlled it.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, competes as Hong Kong, China at the Olympics.

Doping controversy

China’s swim team faced intense scrutiny in Paris following revelations that nearly half the group that Beijing sent to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 had months earlier tested positive for a banned performance-enhancing substance.

The swimmers had been cleared by the China Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) shortly before the Tokyo Games, after it ruled that the positive tests for a banned heart medication were the result of contamination, likely from a hotel restaurant. The global sports doping watchdog World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accepted the assessment without an appeal.

The accusations, first reported by the New York Times and German public broadcaster ARD in April, have sparked backlash in the swimming world, where doping can result in years-long bans for athletes who violate the rules.

Concern only deepened last month, after WADA acknowledged a separate 2022 case in which two Chinese swimmers tested positive for trace amounts of a banned anabolic steroid. They were provisionally suspended but later cleared of a violation by Chinese officials – again citing contamination linked to food, WADA said.

In China, where the swim team has long been a source of Olympic glory, the doping allegations brought outrage and accusations of unfair treatment – with many seeing it as an attempt by the US to sabotage the Chinese team at the Games.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington accused the US of “using the doping issue to smear and suppress China,” while CHINADA and state media have accused the US of “double standards” in handling drugs scandals.

Last week, CHINADA called for more intensive testing of American track and field athletes, citing past doping controversies in the US – and highlighting the case of sprinter Erriyon Knighton, who finished fourth in the men’s 200-meters in Paris.

Knighton was provisionally suspended after testing positive for a banned substance in March, but he was cleared to compete in Paris after an independent arbitrator determined his failed drug test was “more likely than not” caused by contaminated meat, according to the US Anti-Doping Agency.

On Monday, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV posted an article on social media with the headline: “The Olympics Games have ended, but the shocking questions about the ‘United States of Addicts’ cannot be left unanswered.”

“The next Olympics will be held in Los Angeles, USA. To restore the world’s confidence in American sports, the US owes an explanation to the world,” the article said.

A helicopter crashed onto the roof of a seaside hotel in Cairns, Australia, in the early hours of Monday, killing the pilot, authorities said, as video showed flames and smoke billowing into the night sky.

Hundreds of guests and staff of the luxury DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel were evacuated into the street after the helicopter crashed into the building near Cairns Esplanade, a waterfront boardwalk popular with travelers in the north Queensland city.

Police have cordoned off the area in the busy tourist strip, and charter company Nautilus Aviation said it was working with officials as they investigate the “unauthorized use” of one of the company’s aircraft.

Witness Veronica Knight, who was visiting Cairns from Sydney, was sitting on the esplanade, talking on the phone after midnight, when she saw a helicopter fly by very low over the water.

Seconds later, it hit the roof of the hotel.

Police said in a statement they received reports at 1:50 a.m. of the crash, which caused a fire on top of the building. The hotel was evacuated, and nobody was injured, police said – though Knight added that the guests “looked stunned” as they left the building.

Her videos show the orange glow of flames and smoke coming from the top of the hotel, while sirens wail in the distance.

The pilot – and sole occupant of the helicopter – was declared dead at the scene, police said.

Knight said the helicopter had passed over trees and another taller building before hitting the roof of the seven-story hotel.

“[The pilot] would have known those buildings were there,” said Knight. “The strange thing is it went straight past a tall building nearby, and it went straight past the tall one and got a lower one.”

Police have declared an exclusion zone in the area, urging the public to stay away.

Other investigators include the forensic crash unit and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which sent a team to the crash site on Monday to gather evidence and conduct interviews.

The bureau asked witnesses with any photos or videos of the helicopter to contact authorities through the ATSB website.